A third child has died from a powerful crash last week in DeKalb County that police believe was related to drag racing.
Cazhara Lovett, 30, was injured and two of her children, Lauren Coleman, 3, and Jordan Coleman, 4, died last week when two cars collided with their vehicle on April 12 about 11 p.m.
Relatives told Channel 2 Action News Tuesday that the third child, 6-year-old Jaylen Coleman, also died Saturday.The funeral is 1:30 a.m. Wednesday at Central Holiness Church, the station reported.
DeKalb police arrested James Benford and Melanie Putnam on charges of reckless driving. Investigative sketches show that their two cars, which the arrest warrant said were going 100 miles per hour, were nearly side-by-side when they collided with Lovett’s car that was turning from Moreland Avenue on to Constitution Road.
Last week a DeKalb magistrate set a $300,000 bond for James G. Benford and a $175,000 bond for Melanie Putnam on vehicular homicide and reckless driving charges in the deaths of Lauren Coleman, 3, and Jordan Coleman, 4. Benford rated a higher bond because he had several citations in the past five years including two for speeding, while Putnam had a clean driving record.
The stretch of 4-lane road containing the crash site that took the lives of the Coleman children is a relatively desolate industrial sector two miles north of I-285, just south of the Starlight Theater, with little traffic, especially at night. It's miles of straight-away can prove tempting to heavy-footed scofflaws, said Assistant Chief Ed Jones, who oversees traffic enforcement, told The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
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